Brewery owners aim to open in fall

Two mechanical engineers, a quality control specialist, an attorney and a dentist make up the team behind Tuscaloosa’s newest brewing company.

By Ashley ChaffinStaff Writer

Two mechanical engineers, a quality control specialist, an attorney and a dentist make up the team behind Tuscaloosa’s newest brewing company.The team of five home brewers has been working for nearly a year to convert an old barbershop into what will become Black Warrior Brewing Co.’s home in downtown Tuscaloosa. Michael Musgrove, a local attorney and co-owner, said a realistic estimation of their opening date would be the start of the 2013 home football season. In the months before September, Black Warrior Brewing has to finish renovating its building and get all the necessary licenses from the city, state and federal government required to become a brewery.“Getting all of the licenses and the CO (certificate of occupancy) kind of co-mingle with each other. It’s a lengthy process,” Musgrove said. “Not everyone can say ‘I’m going to open a brewery’ and it happen in a month. I would say, at the very least, it’s a six-month process even if you have the building and all the equipment.”The building and equipment are two things Jason Spikes and Joe Fuller, who called themselves co-instigators of the project, didn’t have when they decided to open the brewery in May 2012. Spikes said they knew, however, that if they didn’t take their opportunity, someone else would. “It’s really hard to make it in the brewing industry, but then Alabama changed the laws to allow microbreweries to have tasting rooms, and that’s the only way you can make it work with paying the bills,” Spikes said. “We’re friends with Druid City Brewing, and about the same time they decided to start one, we decided to start one. It just took us longer to find the perfect spot.”The owners said it was important for them to open up their brewery downtown because of the excitement and electricity in the area.“Most cities that have undergone a rebirth now all have a brewery downtown,” Wayne said Yarbrough, a Montgomery dentist and co-owner. “We felt like Tuscaloosa wouldn’t be complete without having a downtown brewery.”Black Warrior Brewing has 12 recipes planned for its menu, but the owners said they will open their tap room with between six to eight based on feedback they’ve gotten from tasters. They will also distribute kegs of beer to be on tap at local Tuscaloosa bars and restaurants.The two beers they plan to distribute are an apricot wheat beer, which Spikes said is similar to Magic Hat 9, and a brown ale that all five agreed was difficult to compare to a well-known brand.“I’ve never had anything like it,” Fuller said. “It’s a brown ale that’s very close to a porter. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s an American brown ale, but ‘hoppier’ than most ales.”From the beer recipes to the design of the building to creating their brewing system, Musgrove said they’ve used architects, plumbers and contractors when they were required to by law, but the five have put at least 4,000 man hours into the brewery and building. Since November 2012, when they leased the property, 50,000 pounds of demolition have been taken from the building as they have redesigned and renovated the space.“We’re going to take a lot of pride in our brewery, a lot of pride in our brewing, because of how many hours we’ve spent on it,” he said. Spikes said online forums estimate that it costs a million dollars to open a brewery, but, because the five have done so much work on their own, they’ve come in “substantially under that.” Spikes and Eric Hull, another co-owner, have mechanical engineering backgrounds, which Musgrove said has saved the team thousands of dollars.“A lot of times people say, ‘Don’t go into business with multiple partners,’ but all of us bring a different skill set so that we were able to do this at a much lower, cheaper price because we were able to bring all of our skills together,” Musgrove said. “The innovation that has come out of this is phenomenal to me. It’s just absolutely mind-blowing the ideas that we’ve been able to come up with.”The brewery, which is two stories and will feature a tap room and event space, will be located at 2216 University Blvd.